Krummavísur
by the return of merry
Summary: AU - Mistaken for dead on the battlefield, lost to his family and his men, Faramir son of Denethor finds himself under the care of a mysterious stranger who goes by the name of Strider.
1. Bubak and Hungaricus

**Just an idea that has been swimming round my head for some time. Very short first chapter. The others will be much longer.**

**The title "Krummavísur" comes from an Icelandic folksong about a raven. **

**Also, I don't own LOTR.**

Nouns were the thing, thought Faramir. He had yet to put any research into nouns, having spent the past several weeks of his spare time pouring over various interpretations of Sindarin grammar structure. Boromir's deep bellylaughs drifted across the table, tearing the boy from his musings. He focused half-heartedly on the conversation, tucking his thoughts away, and stabbed his knife into a particularly fatty slice of beef. There was no animosity between the boys, despite their father's ever-increasing affection for the eldest and cold indifference towards the other. And yet, Faramir thought, he would not have minded his father listening to him so raptly, with such love glowing in his eyes and mirth on his lips as he shared his interests in history and music. But to have an audience on the subject of language, on the tales of Isildur and the fairytale-like elves that his mother had sparked an adoring fascination in - he would not have minded that at all.

It was a silly thing to wish for, Faramir knew. A childish fantasy; his father had long since made quite clear that the Steward of Gondor was a busy man with very limited time for laughter or warmth, and what little he did possess was too small a reserve to be shared by both boys. Boromir, as eldest and the professed favourite son, inherited all of that attention. He occupied himself with memorised strings of elvish poetry instead, his knife carving abstract patterns into the potato and broiled beef as Boromir and the Steward chuckled over old barracks jokes. Perhaps if he remained silent long enough, Faramir mused, he might be able to win himself an excuse to return to his rooms and finish his notations on the past participle.

"Hold your fork properly, Faramir." His father's voice, ever cold and edged with stone, as though it drew its deep treble from the walls of the Citadel itself, drew Faramir's eyes from his plate.

"Yes, Father."

As quickly as the attention had turned on him, so it swung back to the subject of the military and recent Corsair attacks on the coastal villages. Faramir found his attention waning once more, his grip round the cool metal of the fork slipping. Patience was more than a virtue at dinners such as these. With his brother occupied and the conversation firmly stuck on matters that neither concerned nor interested him, it became a necessity. Enveloped in his thoughts, he counted the minutes passing, the amount of times Boromir referred to killing something, the breadrolls and sprouts of broccoli on their plates. In time the entire affair would come to a close, with Denethor excusing himself to his office and Boromir returning to his younger brother's rooms to chat over a mug of strong tea. It was the promise of this visit alone that kept Faramir's mouth shut and his eyes on his untouched food. Their time together grew shorter the older they became. For Boromir, the constant demand of Easterling attacks and spats with rogue bands of Southron soldiers meant that he was rarely in the Citadel and disinclined to take letters from home, while Faramir found himself struggling to stretch his shortly-supplied spare time over the gaps left between gruelling weekdays of training at the military academy and weekends in the Citadel. He set his fork on the table and reached for the wine.

Boromir had launched into a re-enactment of a conversation he had held with a rude beermaiden the night before. Faramir counted the action verbs and the predicates. What was the Sindarin equivalent of "breast"? Fifteen minutes - twenty, thirty at the latest - and he would have Boromir all to himself. Half an hour, and he could return to his rooms in peace and regal his brother with the stories he had kept locked away in the back of his mind, lest he slip and share one with his father, who no doubt would brush them off as banal and a waste of time. They would laugh, Boromir and he, snort into their tea and giggle on the balcony at the goings-on below. When the night grew chill and the fire flicked weakly in the grate, Boromir would claim exhaustion and make to excuse himself to bed but linger. It was the nighttime ritual, an unspoken nudge for Faramir to feign a headache or some other malady so that the older boy would have a reason to stay with him longer. All week he had been looking forward to it, and now that the moment was nearly upon them he found his appetite non-existent. To his left, the Steward had pulled back his chair to allow for the dessert to be set down.

Soon, whispered an impatient little voice in the back of his head. So soon. No more than twenty minutes more and he could leave this tedium. Grinning to himself, he made to push back his own chair to make way for the dish of fruit and cakes. His elbow caught the edge of the fork that had been laid to rest on the very edge of the table. It fell with a heady clatter that echoed round the large room and drew the eyes of all present to his flushed cheeks and narrowed eyes. Hoping vainly that the mishap would go unremarked upon, he stooped to pick it up.

Denethor had turned his gaze on the bowl of strawberries by his left arm, but Faramir could feel the depthless, grey eyes boring into his forehead as vividly as if they had been fixed on him. "If you cannot hold your silverware properly," began the lord slowly in the same dry tone he used to reproach the servants for small breaches in protocol, "you have no place at this table."

The room had fallen silent. His cheeks seared with the flush of blood. His skin smarting, Faramir licked his lips and nodded quietly. "Yes, Father."

"You may leave."

As calm as the deep voice was, as disinterested as the man appeared, there was no denying the dismissal in his waved hand and raised eyebrows. In the depths of Faramir's gut a protest churned. He bit it back, as usual, and rose jerkily to his feet.

"Goodnight, Father - " Long legs were a curse, truly, always tangling themselves round chair legs and catching the edges of the table. " - Boromir." His shoulders slumped; he hung his head, anxious not to catch Denethor's eye.

"Faramir," intoned the man, just as his pubescently large feet reached the doorway. Faramir stopped short, his heart sinking. "Let us have a chat after dinner, you and I."


	2. Confutatis

**Carrying on!**

**For general info, this story takes place when Faramir is roughly seventeen. Sauron has not yet begun to wage war against Gondor, but I reckoned that were probably already troubles at the border with Orcs and unfriendly neighbouring lands, like Near-Harad and Mordor.**

**The name "Einfari" is an Icelandic one that means "he who travels alone".**

**Not the best chapter, and they're going to get much longer as the action begins to pick up its pace. Still, I'd love to hear whether you enjoyed it, or if there's anything you feel could improve it!**

**Also, I don't own _Lord of the Rings. _If I did, I would probably have more in my fridge than cheese, eggs and powdered milk.**

How he hated this room. Everything about it was harsh and cold and dark, from the heavily polished stone of the walls, to the vast oaken desk, to the scowl stretching his father's thin lips. Faramir shifted uncomfortably in the hard-backed chair, bottom lip wedged firmly between his teeth as the Steward stared. How he loathed being regarded in this way. His father's eyes narrowed onto the stretch of pale skin between brow and hairline, the creases in his brow and around his mouth lined with distaste. It was the sort of stare Faramir imagined one might use when regarding an insect that refused to be squashed.

Denethor moved to arrange his robe about him, and Faramir's spine stiffened. These office visits unfailingly followed the same pattern, a tradition of sorts. More often than not, the robes were simply adjusted so as to allow the man to sit comfortably as he tore into his youngest son's confidence. But, if they were removed - if his father stood to hang them from the hook on the wall, he was doomed. Stomach flip-flopping, he would be instructed to stretch himself over the front of the desk while the Steward made his way round with the reedy cane of polished yew that was reserved especially for these rare occasions.

He watched with bated breath as the man loosened his collar.

"I do not understand, Faramir," began his father at length.

For a moment it seemed as though he was hovering on the verge of another sentence. Faramir shifted again, and when several moments had passed and still nothing was said, intoned softly, "My lord?"

The use of the formal title was not lost on Denethor. "You look alike to Boromir, and yet..." He paused, but the remainder of the statement hung in the air between them like a bad smell. _And yet, you are so unlike Boromir_. What could a scholarly string bean of a youth possibly have in comparison to the heir of the Stewardship? "Your instructors tell me you have trouble with the longsword and are distracted during your lessons; you are so silent and uninspiring at dinner, one has to look twice at you to realise you are there at all. You cannot hold a fork without making some mess, and when I ask you for an explanation I get nought but blank stares and murmurs." His bushy eyebrows, like black caterpillars over the narrowed gaze, flew almost to his hairline. "Well?"

What was the Sindarin for _embarrassment_? Faramir started. "I'll try harder, Father." The words, so familiar by now that they slipped from his tongue without thought, tasted slimy and metallic in his mouth. At least once each week he was summoned to one of these late-night "chats", and each week he sat, red-faced and distracted, as Denethor recited the long list of faults that separated him from the pedestal that Boromir had been set upon. The dressing-down always ended with a long-suffering sigh from the Steward and faltered promises of better behaviour in the future from the black-haired boy on the other side of the desk. Faramir's eyes found the manicured surface of the floor and fixed themselves there, his cheeks flushed red as he worked on chewing his bottom lip into a pulp.

Denethor frowned. "You will try, Faramir." He allowed a moment for the boy's eyes to meet his own before continuing icily, "You will try, and you will fall short, and I am fast losing my patience with you."

There it was, at last, that acid edge that sharpened each word like the edge of a sword. The rosy tint in Faramir's cheeks swelled across his nose and forehead. His eyes felt too heavy of a sudden; holding his father's gaze was a battle in itself as the muscles attempted to redirect themselves to the floor again. No matter how many times he heard these words and others like them, no matter how many long nights he had spent in this office, with that inscrutable glower boring into forehead, the blush and the sting always returned to his cheeks. Too small his skin felt, pulled as it was over his lanky limbs and crestfallen face. Digging deep into the bowels of his stomach for the composure to form a response, he said miserably, "I do not mean to be a disappointment to you."

There was no judging his father's reactions in times such as these. The Steward's emotions were as much a gamble as the lottery played amongst those in the lower circles of the city and surrounding farming villages. Armed with nought but the knowledge that, at the very least, his father was still wearing his robe and had not made any move to retrieve the cane, Faramir could do little else but wait on the edge of his seat for a flash of anger, a tinge of remorse, or for the man to simply grow bored and dismiss him to his rooms.

It was the waiting that flustered him more than anything. The sharp tongue he had become accustomed to. The barbs were commonplace, and the Steward's displeasure was hardly a stranger. No, it was the slow passage of time as he restrained himself from bursting out with wild apologies and excuses, the way the seconds ticked past on the clock above the mantel and his father's frown deepened still. Waiting drove him to a distraction that stole the joy even from his language-matching game. A minute more and he would have been on his feet, when finally Denethor spoke.

"I had thought your time in the academy might sort you out - had hoped, rather, that you might return to me as competent and worthwhile as Boromir, but I was mistaken."

Faramir's heart was in his feet. This was a new addition to the usual spiel.

"Clearly," added Denethor, spitting the word across the table, "Clearly, I was mistaken. You share none of your brother's love for your country, for if you did, you would surely have invested yourself as completely as he has into its protection. While Boromir risks life and limb keeping _our lands_ safe, you lock yourself away in the study with your poetry and elvish lore; you care nothing for Gondor, for your father, but for that confounded Grey Wanderer and his fairytales - if it were up to you, we would all be sitting idly, locked away in a library, pouring over dusty tomes as this country falls to ruin."

The protests died in his throat. Even as he formed them, Faramir knew it was useless. He shook his head silently, chewing his top lip.

"You have disappointed me, Faramir." The weariness in his father's voice was alarming. Never before had a sentence sounded so cracked and folded, as wrinkled as a bit of old parchment as it fled the Steward's tongue. "I have obviously been too lenient with you." Denethor paused, as if to allow his words to sink in, and then ploughed on, "Too lenient, too soft. You live in luxury while others your age serve their country in the fens of Near-Harad with little such comfort; I can teach you nothing if you do not wish to learn."

"I do, Father!" The cry peeled itself from his throat before he could stop it. Faramir rose, his clenched fist coming down to rest atop the desk as he gaped at the man in distress. Wherever this talk was headed, he did not like the sound of it. This was less a reprimand and more a resignation. A resignation to what? he wondered. Was he to be shipped off to the Harad to fight and hopefully meet his end upon the curved blade of a Southron? Marched to the borders of the hostile Easterlings' lands and tossed into battle after battle until he expired and ceased to be his father's problem? His mouth dry, he turned to the man with wide eyes and begged, "I want only to please you, sir, and yet how can I when everything I do is so _wrong_ in your eyes? I don't _try_ to trouble you, Father, and sometimes it seems..." The words caught in his throat.

Denethor bared his teeth in an unamused smile and gestured. "It seems?"

Steeling himself, he braved on in softer tones, "It seems you seek to find some fault in me when none is there, sir."

For a long while there was silence between them. The room was thick with it. The Steward, his cold gaze fixed unmovingly on Faramir's clenched fist, said nothing. The boy, his chest heaving and cheeks stinging with the aftershock of having finally expressed himself, could not bring himself to carry on. Each, cavernous tick from the clock on the mantle was like a blow to Faramir's stomach. He waited with bated breath, his fingernails digging half-moon patterns into the soft flesh of his forearms as Denethor frowned and sat and still said nothing.

A long, low _whoosh_ of air expelled itself from the Steward's lungs. At length, he met Faramir's anxious frown with an inexpressive one of his own and grit out, "If you find your father's company so loathsome, Faramir, it is probably for the best, then, that you join Boromir on his patrols along the Poros. Do not look at me that way - there is little else left to me at this point. If it is determined you are to prove to me how much I have failed you as your father, then go, by all means, and make your point on the end of some Southron's sword." He licked his lips, rose to his feet, straightened his robe. Faramir's heart raced. "You think me harsh. Do not deny it, Faramir; it is written across your face. I am not being harsh with you, nor is it my wish to see you hurt. You are my son, however wayward and distracted, but do not be mistaken in assuming that a cowardly, lazy son is of any greater use to me than a dead one."

On these parting words, the Steward of Gondor swept imperiously out of the room, his long robes swinging behind him. He had grown recently, and yet Faramir felt little taller than a dwarf as the candles flickered in their brackets round him, the furniture glaring out largely and imposingly as his father's words rang ominously in his ears.

* * *

Sleep did not find him easily that night. Tossing and turning between blankets that seemed one moment too thick, too stifling, and the next hardly there at all, he fought to keep his breathing even and his head clear. Shipped off. Gone. The cold, stark apartments that had so often to him felt like more a prison than a home were suddenly warmer, softer. They were comfortable, and they were his, and he desperately did not want to leave them.

Faramir knew he was being a coward. His entire life he had been in love with Gondor. The crowded streets of Minas Tirith, the grey seas near Dol Amroth, the woods of Ithilien - they were as much a part of him as his left foot, and gladly would he have given himself to their preservation. And yet, he thought, the idea of perishing in some distant, dusty little corner of the country was hardly an attractive one. He was not a soldier as Boromir was. Not unskilled, but inhibited all the same by his whirling thoughts and the seizing stiffness in his chest at the idea of killing another living being.

The border patrols were not a death sentence to a decent soldier. Was he a decent soldier?

He tossed onto his side, grimacing into his pillow.

Father certainly did not seem to think so. On the other hand, the instructors at the academy, though often frustrated by his quiet demeanour and lack of what they called "his brother's zeal", had all conceded that the second son of the Steward was as good a soldier as any, once he managed to gather his thoughts. Skilled enough with a sword, better with a longbow, he would be far from a liability on the battlefield. But, was he good enough? Did he want to be good enough?

A small, sour bit of the very back of his mind thought it might simply be better to die. Even were he to return to the Citadel with wagons of enemy corpses and blood on his sword, Denethor would be displeased. He would always be displeased, because nothing that Faramir did would ever be as impressive as it had been the first time, when Boromir did it.

He turned again, tearing the heavy coverlet off as his forehead beaded with sweat. Negativity would not get him anywhere tonight. Blinking, he settled himself at the foot of the bed and willed sleep to swallow him whole, envelope him in peaceful dreams and never let go.

By dawn Faramir had given up his search for rest and propped himself up by the window instead, a book of Númenorean folk tales in one hand, his eyes on the rising sun. There was a low knock on the door as one of the scullery maids, Magathea, came to bring him his breakfast and a bowl of cool water to bathe in. He ignored it. The very idea of food brought his churning stomach to a heave. Perhaps if he was silent long enough, Magathea would assume he was still asleep and return to the kitchens, leaving him in peace. For several moments there was nothing but the gentle tick of the clock atop the mantle and the chirp of morning sparrows on the ledge below his window. Faramir sighed and settled back against the wall, his grey eyes closing wearily.

He had just made himself comfortable when Magathea pounded the door again, this time far more persistently, and hissed in a voice far too deep to have been her own, "Open up, you little weasel! I know you're not asleep in there!"

Struggling to his feet, he made a dash for the door and all-but landed on Boromir in a splay of gangly arms and legs. There was something inexplicably comforting about his brother's presence that Faramir had always been rather ashamed to own up to. The childish urge to cling to the older man seized his heart. He settled, instead, for the corner of his bed and turned to regard Boromir with wide eyes as the other snapped the door shut behind him.

"You could have at least had a nap," chided the man gently as he frowned over Faramir's dark circles and drawn face. "It is a long ride to Poros."

Faramir said nothing. Boromir's well-meaning rebukes were more difficult to bear than his father's constant disapproval, for how did he explain his frayed nerves and the dread that pitted itself at the bottom of his stomach like a large stone, weighing him down? There was no excuse for such behaviour. As a son of Gondor he should be nothing less than pleased to take an active hand at last in her protection, and yet the fear nagged at him still; the foreboding idea that he would never return home again had deeply rooted itself in his mind over the night.

Large, rough hands circled his face, closing over his ears and knitting themselves in his thick hair. Boromir's eyes found his. "What's wrong, little brother?"

The low, soft voice all but broke him. Pulling away, Faramir turned to stare at the window. His lip trembled; his hands, for lack of anything better to do, plucked absently at a loose thread dangling from the hem of his shirt. After a pregnant pause, he mustered the breath to say shyly, "Worry birds have laid all the heaviest stone eggs in my stomach this morning."

Boromir lay a hand on his shoulder and sighed, long and low. "The border patrols are rarely so dangerous, Faramir. And you shall be at my side until we return to the Citadel."

They stood in uneasy silence, pretending to be interested in the colour-smeared sky as the sun rose to take its place among the clouds and soaring birds.

"Think of it as a camping holiday for a few months - fortnight after fortnight without Father or the military academy," said Boromir with forced cheerfulness, clapping the boy on the back. Faramir started and shifted away from the touch. How could he explain to his brother the panic that seized his throat at the very idea of leaving home? It was an irrational fear, one that he did not fully understand himself. The familiar surroundings of his apartments felt suddenly extremely significant. The colours, the comfortable furniture, the small collection of leather-bound books and dog-eared notes jumped out at him from the background, painfully poignant. He would never see his room in this state again, Faramir knew. How could he explain his premonition without sounding cowardly and frightened and humiliatingly childish? Though he entertained his younger brother's temperament with far more patience than Denethor did, Boromir would not understand.

Outside, the rest of the city were awoken to a dull clanging from the belfry. At once the birds began to chirp a happy morning tune. Carts clacked across the uneven cobblestones and infants whinged for their breakfasts while men dressed themselves clumsily in darkened bedrooms, tying their hair back and unenthusiastically preparing for another day of work. If he listened closely enough, Faramir fancied he could make out the individual snores and drowsy breakfast table conversations, the smack of a woman's lips against her husband's cheek as she kissed him goodbye for the day, the chink of pewter spoons against porcelain bowls and scuffles across wooden floors as children protested being torn from their warm beds and sent off on the mornings' chores. He pressed his forehead against the cool stone of the wall, his shoulders squared and stiff against Boromir's large, warm hands.

"I'd rather not have any camping holiday, if it meant Father would have me stay here. I'm frightened, Boromir - " He swung round suddenly, his saucer-like gaze falling on the other with urgency. "I shouldn't be. I don't mean to be, but I am all the same."

The vague smile that had occupied his brother's lips and light eyes melted off like an ice cube in a fire pit. From earliest childhood, Faramir had been assumed the weaker of the Steward's two sons. Slighter, paler, markedly shier and quieter, he had always lacked the confidence that Denethor so devotedly instilled in his eldest. The confidence to fight, to share his opinions, to assert himself Faramir rarely showed, but it existed. Boromir had never held any stock in the belief that his younger brother was somehow inferior, or weaker, or any less worth the trouble than he was himself. He alone had seen the flash of cunning in the three year-old boy's eyes as he laid a trap of pillows and building blocks for his unwitting nurse. He had held the hand of the five year-old boy who stood steadfast at the side of his dying mother without so much as batting an eyelash, had watched his brother stand still, chin held up in defiance as he was torn to pieces by their father's criticisms. Smaller and bookish Faramir might have been, anxious and prone to second-guess his every move he was, but frightened - never.

In a single, swift movement Boromir closed the gap between them. His lips drew themselves into a thin line beneath the furrowed brow. "What are you frightened of? The patrols are rarely threatened by more than a few, small bands of orcs. We are in more danger of undercooked meat with dinner than from any of them. What worries you?"

The words tasted stale in the back of Faramir's throat. They scraped his tongue and teeth, sticking to his lips with all of their strength before tumbling out in a nervous jumble. "I feel that if I leave - " He swallowed hard. The moment Boromir knew what it was that ailed him, Faramir would lose his brother's respect forever, he knew. Who could possibly hold in esteem a seventeen year-old scarecrow of a boy who was petrified by what could only have been a premature case of homesickness? "When I leave," he corrected, his eyes drifting back towards the window to watch a sparrow take its place on the nearest bush, "I'll not return. Not here, not anywhere."

The sigh that swept itself from off his brother's tongue ruffled the fringe of Faramir's dark hair. Falling against the arm that fixed itself round his shoulder, he pressed his ear against the taller man's chest and closed his eyes against the comforting rumble of the familiar, booming voice as Boromir consoled, "Don't be daft, Faramir. In two months' time you will be riding Einfari back through the gates of the city with blood on your sword and a grin on your face; you'll be so proud of yourself I expect you'll be unbearable for weeks." Nudging the boy with his shoulder, he pointed out the fresh clothes that had been set out at the foot of the large bed. "Now, forget about being frightened for a moment, little brother, and hurry up and get dressed; we leave within the hour!"


	3. A Silly and Frustrating Fool

**Thank you very much for your encouraging responses! You've all managed to drag me out of my very long fanfiction slumber and reawaken my interest in this story. I will do my best to update as regularly as possible! **

**Also if anyone was interested, when I picture my young Faramir I see a longer-haired Eddie Redmayne lol**

**Also also, this is a fairly short chapter. I am trying to get back into this muse, but please tell me if this was too gratuitous or dramatic, or feels stilted, all of which I fear it will be. It's been a while since I did any writing in English. **

**I don't own The Lord of the Rings. **

The fresh morning air that greeted him when he finally made his way outside slapped and stung through the fibres of his clothes. Faramir followed his brother in silence, arms swinging at his sides beneath the starched tunic he rarely wore, feet clomping far too loudly from within his stiff boots, a birthday gift from his father. His cheeks prickling as tangled strands of hair whipped across them in the breeze, he sped and drew closer to Boromir, who appeared not to have noticed.

Though the walk to the stables was not a short one, it felt to Faramir that they had reached them far too soon. For, no further had he glanced up from a careful inspection of his riding boots than his father's face swam into view, as still and stern as though it had been carved from stone. Beak-like, the nose, as harsh, grey eyes glared down at him from above it. Thin lips curved into a grimace, and the glare suddenly lifted itself to thaw across Boromir's broad forehead.

"My sons, to your safe return."

Without thinking, Faramir moved to embrace him. His hands raised of their own accord, chin lifted so that his grey eyes might meet those of his father; the fact that Denethor had never shown any particular desire to touch him before seemed trivial. He brushed aside the cold stare and hardening features; no father could send his son to war without a blessing, not even his. A shy smile flitted across his lips and faltered. Denethor, his eyebrows raised, took the boy's hand and shook it once, firmly, before dropping it from his grip.

His cheeks flooded with warmth. Idiot, he chided himself mentally. What did you expect, a kiss? There was no use in harbouring hurt or offence when his father behaved this way, he knew. The Steward was a closed man with all, even his eldest at times. At any rate, they were pressed for time. Ignoring the large hand that settled itself on his shoulder, he followed the others into the stables.

Not another word was spoken between the Steward and his sons as the horses were saddled and led outside, where a small company of soldiers awaited already with hard eyes and jaws set. Faramir, for his part, directed his attention to Einfari, who had, according to the stableboy, awoken in a rare mood that morning. The great chestnut stallion had never been skittish or moody before, but tossed his head now, eyes bulging insect-like as he pawed the cobblestones. He seemed to question Faramir's every command, his muscles so tense it was a chore to sit astride him. Faramir sighed. His heart, which had been thrumming along half-heartedly from somewhere round his midsection, dove southwards into his pelvis.

Something was wrong. He knew it, and Boromir knew it, for the elder's lips had never been pressed together so tightly before. as they trod past waves of starry-eyed children and the occasional housewife in the throes of sweeping her front walk. They rode in utter silence; through the gates of the city, onto the Pelennor, the clinking of armour and nervous snorts from their horses providing conversation where theirs had failed. Here, beyond the constant rustling of footsteps and clacking cart wheels, the air was too still. Clouded and grey, the sky frowned at them from its perch above the broad expanse of empty land. The sunlight on his face and hands was cold. Faramir's eyes found his brother's and froze, waiting for corners to wrinkle in one of Boromir's contagious grins. They remained stiff, turning with the rest of his brother's head to observe the horizon.

The first to speak was a bright-eyed young man three places behind.

"Lucky it's not raining," he announced cheerfully and ploughed on at the general lack of response, "Last ride home was a mess. I was ill all week, wasn't I, Thorgild?"

"Don't ask me anything, don't say anything to me - I've got - " The youth addressed as Thorgild slipped a hand up the front of his tunic and scratched furiously. " - this damned itch."

Faramir watched them curiously from the corner of his eye, the corners of his grey mood lifting ever-so-slightly as the grinning boy who had spoken first addressed a third.

"Do you think there's a possibility of rain at all, though?" His wide, blue eyes turned to scrutinise the sky. "At all?"

The third, a long, morose blond with a pointed nose and small, square chin, shrugged; he opened his mouth as if to sigh but fell short, cut off by a fourth, who broke in agitatedly, "Stop talking, all of you, or you'll be sleeping in the rain when we get to Poros."

Silence reigned again.

o o o

Though he would never admit to as much, Boromir's nerves were as easily frayed as that of an energetic schoolboy's. He stomped from the tree to which he had tied his horse, Fiasko, in a silent, red-cheeked, glowering sort of mood that Faramir had seen often enough to recognise the symptoms of at once. Tactfully, and because he knew that doing so would only serve to further frustrate his brother's temper, he kept his distance. What was the word for tantrum in Sindarin?

He resigned himself instead to remaining perfectly still, silent, and hopefully invisible; searingly conscious of the way his boots hung loosely about the thin form of his legs and the clumsy stack he had left his belongings in beside the bedroll upon which he was currently sitting.

"The none of us have introduced ourselves yet," piped a cheerful voice behind his left ear. Starting violently, Faramir swivelled over the wrinkled bedroll to find himself nose length from the chatty blond boy who had been so concerned before over the weather. "Falhofnir," announced the blond through a pair of rosy cheeks split in two by a childish grin. "That was my father's favourite horse, and I'm his youngest son, as he likes to remind me when he's in a rough mood. Bad luck sort of name to be stuck with, seeing as he had to kill the old brute in the end to feed the lot of us through the winter, but that's it, and that's Thorgild, the redhead with the itch. He spends too much time in brothels."

"Oh," was all Faramir could think of to say. His eyes darted from Falhofnir to the other in rapid succession. The boy called Thorgild gestured vaguely with one elbow as he attempted to scratch at something buried beneath his thick tunic.

"Hálfdan is the tall, sad one with the funny beak nose. He's not really sad. He's quite clever, actually, and so is his brother, Harald. Harald is second in command after your brother, didn't you know. Don't bother to remember any of that; he'll make sure to remind you, and so will Ingolfur, the tiny, older one with the sausage there, you see? He wishes he was Harald, or had Harald's spot. Einar and Borghild aren't very important. They're older and sour most of the time, and I'm sure you'll have something to do with them at some point, and Alfan, you'd probably feel a bit sorry for him - he's got a country accent that makes him sound a bit thick, but I think he's all right. Did you want something to eat?"

Taking advantage of the sizeable pause left after this slough of new information, Faramir blinked and glanced the new acquaintance up and down appraisingly. He was young and very tall, with a square jaw and easy face that seemed ready to break into another smile at any given moment. A friend. Or rather - he blushed - a friendly acquaintance. It was presumptuous to assume that any of these men would want anything to do with him by way of friendship. Really, he would only be among their number until he was killed, or seriously injured, or until his father felt a bit sorry for him and recalled the punishment.

"Of course you do!" Broad, pale hands, whipped pink by the cold, tore through the rucksack Falhofnir has procured seemingly from thin air. "I've only got cheese, I'm afraid," he shrugged, his lips pinched, and waved a block of something large and pale yellow in Faramir's face. "My mother makes it with the sour milk she gets for helping on the fields. It's good enough, anyways, and - "

"Budge up!" The red-head with the itch. Faramir started and slid back through the mud, his lips parted slightly in surprise as the red-head spread himself leisurely over his bedroll. "Better once we reach Nîluad. They've always got a bed free." He sighed contentedly, his gaze drifting along the lines of his long legs as he scratched himself. "Nine bloody months we've been doing this, and a good half the time spent sleeping in inns - you wouldn't believe it - " he paused to take a large bite out of the block of cheese Falhofnir had been carefully slicing into portions, " - easiest nine months I've ever had. When my father found out, he flew into such a rage that my mother had to coax him out of beheading my cat."

"See there!" interrupted Falhofnir, beaming at him. "Nothing to be worried about at all! We're practically old hats at this point, and the worst that's happened to us have been wet bedrolls and a split fingernail."

"And this itch."

"And Thorgild's itch," he added generously.

The pressure that had been squeezing his lungs through his ribcage loosened slightly; releasing the rattle of breath that been trapped in his chest all morning, Faramir returned the boy's grin with a shadow of his own.

Transferring his gaze to a patch of grass that had managed to force its way through a tear in his bedroll, he shrugged.

"I nearly pissed myself the first ride out," offered Thorgild considerately.

His spine stiffened. The grass beneath his fingers raised to attention in tandem with the hairs at the back of his neck.

Falhofnir nodded. "I panicked during a storm and dropped my torch into a haystack not a day in - "

"And _did_ piss himself."

The air about him seemed to come to a stillstand, his eyelids fluttering.

"I don't want to hear any more; I - I am not afraid." Even to his own ears, the voice that spilled from the crack between the thin lines of his lips crashed off-key and unpleasant through the moist air. Faramir was aware as if from a great distance of the lead that spread through his stiffening limbs as he slid himself further away from the pair. He could imagine the manic glint in his eye. The ugly twist of his mouth that left no doubts as to his patronage. His heart pounded, the gravity of the situation at hand slinging back to knock the wind once more from his chest. "You'll have to excuse me," he said coldly, gesturing for the others to remove themselves from his bedroll. "I am tired and would prefer to keep my own company tonight."

Falhofnir's distorted, melting-wax grin stung against the naked whites of his eyes, but Faramir found himself unable to move. The urge to apologise as immediately and profusely as possible surged through his knees as though willing them to throw themselves into the mud before the others, through his knuckles as they twitched and fought the urge to weave his fingers into a sign of prayer and the uneasy muscle in the corner of his mouth, ready to spill open. He stared at the grass. No urge could cancel the weight of stone eggs laid anew in a stomach that had not yet managed to digest the remnants of a skipped breakfast.

Thorgild shot to his feet with surprising fluidity, his left hand seizing a fold of Falhofnir's collar, the right travelling up the expanse of his chest to scratch again with gusto. He spat into the grass. "He never pissed himself, anyway. I was only lying to try and cheer you up. It upsets the others when the new ones skulk round like the condemned, and it puts the horses off their dinner."

Long after they had stomped off into the underbrush, long after the horses had stopped pawing at the roots of the trees they were harnessed to, after the moon had slid up to replace the bloody remnants of a dying sun and the gusts of laughter from the others simmered down in tandem with the crackle of the fire, Faramir lie awake. His words coursed through the pound of blood in his ears, cold and tinny. His father's son. Too proud and ashamed and terrified of the clench in his gut, the image of dull, blue eyes and a broad mouth sunken into the slack skeleton's grin to try and explain himself to the others. They would reject him. Sit apart from him while they shared their dinners and speak as though he was not there. He expected that reaction. Accepted it, almost - or at least, had chewed it up and swallowed it so as not to have to return to the image of a blond and a red-headed corpse being tossed onto a pyre, their bones hissing and cracking atop the growing heat.

o o o

Dawn of the tenth day drifted in through the crack in his lips on the back of a lazy tendril of smoke from the previous night's fire. At first, the warmth of his brother's breath on his cheek seemed to lick at the skin like the flames in his dreams. Faramir squirmed and reached out.

"Pshht!" Boromir's eyes bored into his own, blinklessly commanding him to follow, silently, so as not to wake the others. He allowed himself to be tugged to his feet and stumbled after into the brush, his body moving from practice alone, his mind and eyes as blank as the slab of slate-coloured sky overhead.

They arrived at the stream Faramir had bathed his tight chest and leaden limbs in only hours before. Green and murky in the dimness, it greeted them with a contented gurgle and slipped over the stones of its curved spine, through the trees and out of sight. A lullaby gurgle, thought Faramir blearily, rubbing his eyes. A camping trip. A fire. A stream. He almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. His father had meant to teach him a lesson by sending him on an extended holiday in the wilderness with a well-meaning farmer named for a dead horse and an itching butcher's son.

Boromir packed him on the shoulder. "You are a silly and frustrating fool sometimes, little brother."

Something quite unlike the comfortable warmth of sleep began to prickle in his toes.

"A fool who stays silent when he would most prefer to speak. Frustrating - " his grip tightened to an almost painful squeeze, but Faramir was still detached from his body, still trapped in the folds of an exhausted mind as the prickling spread into his thighs, " - I've never doubted your abilities. I know you too well to believe your play on homesickness - Faramir, look at me!" Words could pierce through a body, even a silken shirt, deeper than any arrow. Useless words, he thought. The tenth day was greyer than all nine of its predecessors. He was exhausted. Too exhausted to think.

"Look at me."

The prickling feeling burning in the pit of his stomach, Faramir forced his heavy eyes to meet Boromir's.

He sighed: "Let me sleep another hour, and then - "

Boromir's grip on his shoulder had become almost unbearable, and the light reflecting off of the watery patterns in his brother's eyes gave off the impression of a pair of miniature oceans churning at the centre of his pale face. A wave. A pyre. Shuddering, Faramir wrenched his shoulder in the opposite direction. Anything to escape the waves in those eyes and in his brother's voice as he hissed, "I was young enough to be able to spare a few play hours for myself in the nursery when you turned grey like this and took on that look - like you'd been to another world in that frustrating, little head of yours - and told me our mother was ill. _I_didn't know she was ill, Faramir. I saw nothing that wasn't presented to me from our father's lap, but you knew even though they had forbidden us to see her."

The prickling had increased to a blaze through his chest, his neck, his forehead. Stripped of the cloud of exhaustion, Faramir's eyes began to sting.

"You foretold her death and held her hand where I couldn't bare to look at her. You told me _I _mustn't be afraid, for she had been tugged from the path of the wave that was crashing down on us all, and _I_ must be brave. Those words have been knotted into the very hairs of my ears since that day, and you - in all the wonder that is your idiocy, your foolishness - disappoint yourself if you think you can convince me that the shadow in your eyes is nothing more than a premature case of homesickness; you are a fool - the king of fools - Faramir, and I want to know what you have seen!"

A sign from the Gods that he had done something wrong. Displeasure, clearly. But, he had kept his distance from Falhofnir and Thorgild without being overly unpleasant, had spared them the fate his mother had met by refusing to look them, denying himself the comfort of a short-lived friendship for their sake. He had whittled and written everything he could remember about Sindarin declinations into the ashes of the small fire he kept for himself. He would not damn anyone else to the no-man's land beyond the reach of his wave, not as he had done to his mother, not as he had drowned her lungs in a pool of his own fearful tears. His father's most devoted had not been able to keep him from her side, but he was the guard at the door now, keeping watch on himself, holding the danger at bay.

And Boromir was never allowed to know.

"Faramir!"

"Boromir!" Harald's throaty voice rebounded from the stream to their ears and back into the suffocating cloud of black from which it had come. "Boromir!"

He was suddenly aware of the heat seeping through the brush. The shrill screams of the horses and the screeching collision of steel on steel. With a parting squeeze on his shoulder, Boromir released him and took off in the direction of Harald's call. His sword was drawn, and it was only then that Faramir realised he was weaponless and alone in his tunic and and boots. The camp was on fire. He could vaguely make out the outline of a lanky red-head dangling crookedly from the blackened skeleton of a tree, his arms and legs swaying at unnatural angles as he was pushed back and forth between two men.

With a deafening crack, the branch that had been supporting the sport broke away. Thorgild had been dead before the fall, before the game. He landed in a heap atop a mismatched stack of long limbs and blond hair, and the shadowy figures that had amused themselves with his corpse turned just in time to dodge the path of an arrow that whistled past and into Faramir's exposed chest with the haste of a lover greeting a long-lost mate.


	4. Memento Mori

**Lots and lots of thanks to anyone and everyone who read. It is difficult getting back into a certain writing style, but I'm working on it. I hope it's at least somewhat all right at the moment.**

If anyone is interested, also, I am quite desperately in need of a beta for this.

It took little more than a minute.

Faramir was behind him as he ran to join the fray, of that Boromir was certain. He had glanced back, had noted with a swell of guilt that his brother stood weaponless and confused, and he had done nothing. There had been no time. The camp was on fire.

Within five paces, Boromir had cleared his way through to Harald. Five paces. By the time he turned again, Faramir was struck, his mouth gaping in shock. And then he was gone.

The act of raising the horn to his lips had been instinctive. Anyone within miles would be aware of them, of their need. Friend or foe - it hardly mattered. Important was only Faramir. To find Faramir. To bring him to safety. Alive.

Even as he crouched, his nose nearly bathed in the muddied Earth, Boromir could not fight off the pressure that settled in his chest. _Worry birds have laid all the heaviest stone eggs in my stomach this morning_. As clear a warning as any - why had he ignored it? His brother knew then just as he had all those years before, and now just as then, Boromir had played the fool. Pretended for the better.

His brother was dead. With a grunt and a kick at the twitching form before him, he sheathed his sword. The camp was beyond saving. What had not been burnt lie bloodied in the mud. Worse - the tracks he was searching had been obscured by the scuffle of other feet, by the stiff corpses of other dead, someone's else's brother. Only the disappearance of Faramir's horse, Einfari, gave him hope.

But, Faramir would not have ridden like a coward from battle while brother still fought. With his injury, the act of mounting a horse alone would have been a near-impossible feat.

His stomach seized. Faramir was dead. Fallen into the River Poros - or thrown - during the scuffle. His horse stolen. Would they find his body, mottled and bloated, bobbing alongside the docks in some foreign town? A drunkard, they would say. Tug him out. Dry him off. Toss him into a shallow grave and laugh at the follies of youth.

No amount of ale could have slated the thirst he felt then. Ankle-deep in the muck, in the dead, the ashes of his camp and his men, he called Harald to his side.

"You are certain that your brother is capable?"

"A trained hunter. If Halfdan cannot find him... "

Boromir nodded slowly, ignoring the slick taste of iron that settled across his tongue at the implication. Not for the first time, he cursed his position. As captain, he could not search for Faramir himself. There were troops to be put into order, injuries to be tended to, provisions to be sought after, plans to be made. To be able to forget all of that, to chase the clumsy trail until the end of the Earth, if that was what it took! The very muscles in his chest seemed to tug in that direction, urging him to forget his responsibilities for a moment, to return his brother into the arms of those who cared for him as he had so oft gone looking for a shy child want to hide in broom cupboards when certain relations came to visit.

"Boromir?"

"I cannot return to Minas Tirith until I have found him, Harald."

Harald studied his soiled boots. " I know you cannot bear to wait here until my brother returns. It is early enough yet - "

"I cannot - "

"I am your second-in-command. I, too, can ask the survivors for the names of the fallen. I, too can send hunting parties across the Poros, but you have seen the tracks. Faramir was dragged in the opposite direction. You have until dusk, I should think."

Little more need be said; Boromir was already on his feet, his nose pointed in the direction of the stream by which he had last seen his brother. A great hunter he had never been. That had been Faramir and his father's specialty. They, unlike Boromir, were able to wait for hours on end in utter stillness. They moved swiftly and softly in ways that he could not imagine, for no sooner had he set a toe on the ground came the great rustle of fowl and small rodents on the run. Now, there was no need for silence. No time to wait. He would find his brother - living - and return him to the Citadel, where his father would have to recognise the folly in his actions.

o o o

The world that he saw was no longer the world that he had left behind at the camp.

Faramir lay on his back on a grassy hill, enjoying the cool of the breeze on his face and chest, the soft grass beneath his fingers and bare feet. He wiggled his toes, appreciating the warmth of the sun upon them, upon his cheeks, his forehead.

Somewhere near him, just out of sight, his mother sighed. "We shall have to return soon."

Protests rose like gas in his chest, bubbling at the back of his throat, ready to burst from his lips the moment he opened his mouth. He kept it shut.

"Faramir, gather your things. I am to dine with your father and your Uncle Imrahil tonight, and you must be bathed before Beatha puts you to bed."

Why could he not see her? His mother? He had always loved to see her, her soft, pale skin and grey eyes. Her hair, black like the feathers of a raven. How he had loved to run his fingers through the tips of it while she swatted at him.

"Come now, Faramir, we are running out of time."

Dinner. A bath. Beatha. The old crone would pinch and prod at him like she did on every visit. Snort and compare him to his brother, who could only giggle and cry out in dismay, "But, Beatha, Faramir is my _little_ brother! He is supposed to be smaller than I am!" He had no desire to see Beatha today. No desire to do anything but lie here in the grass, with his mother's voice and the breeze to cool the heat that had settled within his chest.

This is what it is, to die, said a small voice in the back of his mind. Yes, this was death. A far green country. Rolling hills. Nana. It could have been much worse, said the voice. Yes, it could have been.

o o o

The last time he had heard that horn sound, he was standing next to the young blower - a stern, foolishly proud creature. Too stubborn to call for help, because Thorongil bade him do so. Denethor had ever hated to show himself for the weaker of the two, especially when his father was there.

This boy was not Denethor, but he might have been. At any rate, he carried much of the blood of his ancestors in him, the blood of the Westernesse that had set Denethor - and Thorongil - so very far apart from the majority of their comrades. A stern, high forehead, beaded with sweat. Nose as straight as an arrow, sign of a strong will. A will to live? He hoped so.

Great, gasping breaths. A fleeting pulse. If the hole in his chest could not be closed, the boy was as good as dead. Thinking quickly, Thorongil sprang to the nearest tree with flat leaves and, chose the broadest he could find, then drew a dagger from his side. He drove it quickly and without passion into the thin bark, disliking the sensation, the thick, red sap that seeped like blood from a paper skin. The sap he collected onto one of the leaves, fell to a kneel again at the boy's side, where clouded, grey eyes met his, bloodied lips parted: "_Gwannon_." It was not a question.

"You may die, yes," said Thorongil softly, his hands ceaseless in their work, spreading sap across the uninjured skin, pressing leaves into a criss-cross pattern to cover the hole and hopefully keep most of the air inside the injured chest. "But, you live yet. I will do my best to help you, but you must try to stay awake." Faint and crooked, the nod. Wide eyes, too shocked to spill a tear, fixed themselves on his own. Feeling suddenly uncomfortably close, he focused on the wound. Stem the blood. Keep the air in. "You are learned in the Elven tongue - no, do not try to speak. Lie still. Yes, as still as you can. We must be silent here; the woods of Ithilien are no longer safe for our kind."

Every blink of the fading, grey eyes seemed to stretch on for eternity, convincing him once and again that the boy had given into the struggle. But, he was not dead. Dazed and in pain, he gasped as quietly as he could manage, his eyes flitting back and forth after the movements of Thorongil's hands, from the pouch at his belt to the tender leaves that he chewed and pressed, moist and warm, against the torn flesh.

"_Law íron gwannad_."

No one wants to die, he almost responded. But, the boy's eyelids had fluttered together. "Sleep." He finished dressing the wound and sat back on his heels, at last able to release the breath that he had been holding. "If you do not die today, _maethoreg_, I should be very much like to learn your name."

My Sindarin is awful at best, but just saying "he said in Sindarin" seemed too lame, so I tried with the fail-skills of a wannabe linguist.

**_Gwannon_**** - "I am dying"  
****_Law íron gwannad_**** - "I do not desire (want) to die"  
****_maethoreg_**** - "maethor" = warrior, with the diminutive ending "eg", meaning "little warrior". Maybe slightly cheesy, but I imagine it having been said almost ironically as a note of Faramir's youth and the art of his injury, not in a sappy way. **


End file.
